I ran a story a while back, sourced from CricInfo, about what then appeared to be a rather petty move by the UK Government to prevent a Zimbabwe U15 side from taking part in the CLICO U15 International Championship in the West Indies. Reports at the time indicated that the UK had refused transit visas for the side, forcing their withdrawal. To say that I was annoyed at the UK’s reported actions would have been an understatement.
CricInfo have now done some further digging into the saga, and it seems that initial reports were in error. Their follow-up investigations show a level of either duplicity or incompetence on ZC’s part (you decide) that sealed the tour’s fate before visa applications were even on the agenda:
A source inside Zimbabwe Cricket has told Cricinfo that senior board officials told junior cricket co-ordinators that the trip would not happen as long ago as January when the invitation originally arrived.
At that time, the organisers told ZC that all costs in the Caribbean would be met by them, and they would also pay US$10,000 towards flights. In late February, ZC contacted the organisers and asked for an increased contribution towards the travel costs, and the sum offered was raised to US$15,000.
On March 3, the organisers received an email from ZC to the effect that the trip was not possible because of “circumstances”. This was more than six weeks before they were due to travel. After discussions, ZC changed its mind and 24 hours later confirmed their participation while for their part, the organisers agreed to meet the full air fares from South Africa, leaving the board only needing to fund the flight from Harare to Johannesburg.
However, it is unclear why the visa applications were not submitted at that time as it appears that the British embassy were not contacted by telephone until the first week of April, almost four weeks later. In response to an general query, a board official was advised that any visas for individuals who had not visited the UK, USA or EU in the previous two years had to be handled in Pretoria and, as a result, there was not enough time to process the applications.
It was, nevertheless, widely reported that the visas had been turned down but this has since been strenuously denied by embassy officials as no formal applications were ever submitted.
If the above is true, then I happily take by my earlier criticisms of the UK’s actions - instead, it’s ZC who should really have some questions to ask about their handling of the matter. On the other hand, CricInfo do have a tendency to stick the boot into ZC at any opportunity (and this article is credited to Martin Williamson, who really seems to relish that), so I’m not certain that the truth isn’t somewhere in-between…
CricInfo - Zimbabwe visa problems only half the story